Guest Blogger: Dan McCleary - Page 2

For the past 22 years, one of the personal on-stage inspirations and models, perhaps the singular of these, has been Mark Rylance. I am hardly alone in feeling this way. Mark is world-renowned and a multi-award winner, though I don't imagine he puts much stock in such things.

I founded Tennessee Shakespeare Company in my hometown of Memphis in 2008 following many years of working as a stage actor, director, artist-manager, primarily in New England. I was personally and professionally compelled to found TSC, and I spent half a year researching and creating a strategic seven-year plan. This gave birth to the Mid-South's only professional, classical theatre. But we quickly outpaced our seven years. We also encountered all manner of unforeseen obstacles, surprises, and even set-backs, which, the further I get from them, the more intriguing they become (as opposed to just harrowing).

Actor Cherry Jones, always deeply affecting on stage in over 20 years of work in which I have seen her, has an uncanny ability to include her audience regardless of whether or not the play requests it. . . . Regardless of the size of the house, in everything she does on stage she breathes in the audience and exhales us back into our seats, changed.